Microsoft 4Q profit misses; books Surface charge

REDMOND, Wash. – Microsoft booked a $900 million write-down for slashing the price of its Surface RT tablet and its revenue and earnings came up short of Wall Street forecasts in the fourth quarter.

The company blamed the disappointing results Thursday on a decline in the PC market.

Net income in the April-June quarter was $4.97 billion, or 59 cents per share, reversing a loss of $492 million a year ago when it wrote down almost the entire value of its 2007 purchase of online ad service aQuantive.

Excluding the Surface charge, earnings were 66 cents per share, short of the 75 cents per share expected by analysts polled by FactSet.

Revenue grew 10 percent to $19.90 billion, also below the $20.72 million expected.